回复：悉尼周末夜：白兔，富豪，日本农民[图]

来源: Fagger 于 2009-08-02 19:00:16 [档案] [博客] [旧帖] [给我悄悄话] 阅读数 : (2683 bytes)

Judith Neilson, the wife of South African-born billionaire Kerr Neilson, has revealed details of the art she intends to put on public display in a new gallery set to open in Sydney in October. The private museum, White Rabbit, will be Australia’s first dedicated to contemporary Chinese art.

The gallery will be housed in a renovated warehouse in Sydney’s newly gentrified Chippendale area, five minutes walk from Central station, at a cost of around A$10m ($8.8m).8232;8232;

Zimbabwean-born Mrs Neilson was first introduced to Chinese art by the Ray Hughes gallery in Sydney in 2001. She has since travelled to China several times, concentrating on art made after 2000 and mainly buying directly from artists. Her collection now includes over 200 works by around 75 artists including Gao Feng, Qi Zhilong, Zhang Xiaotao, He Jia and Cang Xin.8232;8232;

Mrs Neilson says her daughter Paris is the co-curator and driving force behind the collection. Their chief curatorial consultant is the Chinese artist Wang Zhiyuan. 8232;8232;

Mrs Neilson’s hu*****and, Kerr Neilson, who told The Australian that he knows “nothing about art”, floated 20% of his international funds management company, Platinum Asset Management, last May, which netted him an estimated A$701m ($601m) overnight. A foundation has been set up to manage the funds of his wife’s project. 8232;8232;

The collection is to be accompanied by a large-scale, full-colour catalogue for which The Sydney Morning Herald’s art critic John McDonald (a contributor to this newspaper) will be providing the text.8232;8232;

Mrs Neilson has not followed religiously the roll-call of high-profile artists associated with other newly-established collections of Chinese art such as the Estella collection, amassed over the last few years by Sacha Lainovic, a director of WeightWatchers. Nor has she attempted to create an encyclopaedic survey of contemporary Chinese art. “We are not interested in filling in the gaps,” she says. 8232;8232;

This reluctance to follow buying trends is also seen in the Neilsons’ decision to avoid purchasing sought-after works at auction. They also say that none of the works will be sold.8232;8232;

Some of the strongest works in the collection are by relative unknowns, such as Jin Nu’s installation Exuviate 2, Where Have all the Children Gone?, consisting of a number of starched dresses suspended in mid air. But superstar artist Ai Weiwei is represented with an installation of ceramic oil slicks.8232;8232;

And why the name White Rabbit? “It was something I thought up and it sounded catchy,” says Mrs Neilson. 8232;8232;